Join a ranger for a hike during the full moon to look and listen for nightlife in the park, including coyotes, owls, and scorpions! Bring a flashlight. Rain cancels. All ages welcome. Meet at parking lot. 2hrs NPS

So many people are crazy over Downton Abbey, so it only makes sense that their love of the show sneaks into everything they are doing. I am a big fan myself and often find myself sipping a cup of tea and nibbling some biscuits as I watch.

Over at The Kitchn, Nancy Mitchell is show her love for all things Downton Abbey with a collection of cocktails named and themed for each of the Crawley women. Most are champagne-based and each seeks to call out the identifying traits of each woman.

Saturdays will have the HISTORIC DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 101 tour and Sunday will have the HOW LOS ANGLES INVENTED THE WILD WEST (and why no one knows it) tour.

On Saturday February 25th and Sunday February 26th (and Saturday March 3rd and Sunday March 4th) will be two different guided walking tours of Historic Downtown Los Angeles’s secret past, its present – and its future.

A few months ago, I created a cookbook for this iPad App and Web site. Cookbook Cafe allows anyone to create their own cookbook and deliver it directly to user’s iPads. (You can also access the cookbooks directly on the web site)

This new app allows anyone — individuals, charities and non-profits, restaurants, etc — to create (and sell) their own cookbooks. It presents the cookbooks complete with photos and videos in an attractive fashion, just like a paper cookbook.

Meet the dusky-footed woodrat on his own turf. Join a 1-mile easy walk with naturalist Tony as he takes you on a tour of the neighborhood where they build elaborate nests that are both a home and a time capsule. Meet at the parking lot to left of the pond. 2hrs MRCA/SMM

I came across this amazingly geeky idea in my RSS feeds recently. I love it when people take something to its apotheosis, such as using this small piece of aging barrel to “age” your own cocktails. I suppose you could also use it to age and season some of your own liquor if you distilled it yourself. $10 is a fairly cheap price to give it a try.

The trend of barrel-aging whole cocktails has emerged among mixologists (likely attributed to expert Jeffrey Morganthaler), and in the absence of your own tiny casks, you can aged your own “white” cocktails for a mere $10 investment. The trick is a jar and a tiny piece of stave from an aging barrel. Available at Tuthill Town Spirits for $10.

I have been using Flickr to share my photos since 2004 and have over 5,300 photos there which have been viewed over 33,000 times. I’ll be re-visiting some of my favorite pictures and also those most popular with other Flickr users.

I picked up a bunch of these standees at BarCampLA back in 2006. This photo was part of my Picture-A-Day series from that year. It is rated as the #1 most popular photo in my Flickr Photostream.

I still have that laptop, although the hinge is broken and it isn’t the speediest thing. It gets called into duty on occasion for displaying videos at Halloween and other static displays.